Queer Quotes: On Coming Out and Culture, Love and Lust, Politics and Pride, and Much More [Hardcover]

Teresa Theophano (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 2004

Hundreds of inspirational, humorous, and provocative quotations about being queer

What is a queer quote? It’s a reflection on love and romance, culture and art, family and friends, and the foibles and follies of life. It’s an insight into not only what it means to be gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender in our society, but what it means to be human. It’s fresh, entertaining, and celebratory.

Queer Quotes is a compendium of wit and wisdom from well-known historical and contemporary cultural figures—from Oscar Wilde to Rita Mae Brown, from Quentin Crisp to Sandra Bernhardt, from James Baldwin to RuPaul. Often amusing, the quotes are also thought-provoking and up-to-date, and chapters ranging from “Love and Gay Marriage” to “Out of the Closets, into the Streets” to “HIV/AIDS” to “Queer History” reflect this book’s scope. Including an index as well as short biographies of all the individuals quoted, Queer Quotes is a wonderful resource and an ideal gift book.

SELECT LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS: Paula Gunn Allen, Dorothy Allison, Pedro Almodovar, James Baldwin, Tallulah Bankhead, Simone de Beauvoir, Sandra Bernhardt, Chastity Bono, Susie Bright, Truman Capote, Kate Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Melissa Etheridge, Leslie Feinberg, Harvey Fierstein, Barney Frank, Jewelle Gomez, Larry Kramer, Liberace, Greg Louganis, Audre Lorde, Sir Ian McKellen, Isaac Mizrahi, Boy George, Armistead Maupin, Martina Navratilova, Adrienne Rich, Marlon Riggs, Eleanor Roosevelt, Urvashi Vaid, Gore Vidal, John Waters, Edmund White, Oscar Wilde.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Theophano has collected quips, cracks, gibes, proverbs, truisms, and plenty of other sayings in Queer Quotes.—Out --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Teresa Theophano is a writer, editor, and social worker in New York City, where she has been compiling queer quotes for several years.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (September 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807079065
• ISBN-13: 978-0807079065
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,420,773 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Utterly, Joyously, and Quotably Queer!, July 18, 2006

By 

M. J. Lowe "www.mjlowe.info" (Denver, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Queer Quotes: On Coming Out and Culture, Love and Lust, Politics and Pride, and Much More (Hardcover)

QUEER QUOTES: ON COMING OUT AND CULTURE, LOVE AND LUST, POLITICS AND PRIDE, AND MUCH MORE, edited by Teresa Theophano, is a delightful collection of GLBT-related quotations. Divided into 16 topics, including "All Things Queer," "Naming Ourselves," and "Queer History," with quotes range from the touching to the bitingly funny, with some healthy stops along that way that prompt a reader to think. However, all the quotes have a positive slant. Theophano in her introduction explains that she has "avoided including sound bites from homophobes. We already know what the Trent Lotts, Jerry Falwells, and Fred Phelps of the world think of GLBT issues. ...Let's be utterly, joyously, and quotably queer!" (10).

On the currently timely topic of "Love and (Gay) Marriage," Liz Langley states "Gay marriage should be legal if just to raise the standard of dancing at receptions" (29).

Political issues are the focus of "Out of the Closets, Into the Streets" with this from Barbara Grier: "It is the closet that is our sin and our shame." (81) And a chilling quote from Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the US, reads, "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door" (77). Milk was assassinated in 1978.

In "the Arts" there are a number of humorous entries as well as two quotes for the queer bibliophiles from Dorothy Allison and Nancy Garden, respectively:

"If I'd taken up with a gospel band or rock and roll, I'd make a whole lot more sense to my family. But to write books. ...I'd come home with books and they'd stare at me like I was crazy. That was the thing most queer about me" (37).

"[Radclyffe Hall's THE WELL OF LONELINESS] became my bible. I read it and reread it over and over again. And I vowed at that point that I was going to write a gay book that ended happily, a book about my people" (40). The author of dozens of award-winning children's and teens' books, Garden wrote ANNIE ON MY MIND, originally released in 1982, a groundbreaking novel concerning love been between two high school girls.

Theophano has included a biography section for the over 270 speakers quoted. This handy appendix provides brief biographical summaries, frequently listing best known titles if the person is an author, and an explanation of their notability. This section is particularly useful given the broad range of personalities quoted -- from Sophocles and Oscar Wilde to Melissa Etheridge and Calpernia Addams. Regretfully, not all these entries include a year of birth (or death). There appeared to be a few minor errors and the reader should cross-check the biographic information if using it for more than casual reference. (For example Rita Mae Brown's groundbreaking novel, RUBYFRUIT JUNGLE, is listed as originally released in 1983 rather than 1973). This reviewer would have liked the biographical data to have included the names of some long-term relationships, especially when the partners also appear in the volume as with Kate Clinton and Urvashi Vaid.

However, these shortcomings pale compared to the value of the section. Further, the editor has provided an index to the hundreds of quotes allowing the reader to find all quotes by a particular person. These last two sections result in a collection that is valuable to researchers as well as fun for the casual reader.

A well-organized, thoughtful, and fun little book, QUEER QUOTES is the most comprehensive title of its kind and would be useful for libraries and others who might use quote books, as well as being a size and format that make it a charming gift book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and thorough, August 2, 2005

By 

S. Smith (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Queer Quotes: On Coming Out and Culture, Love and Lust, Politics and Pride, and Much More (Hardcover)

The quotations in this book range from the supportive to the philosophical to the hilarious to the critical. I enjoyed the diversity of the quotations. There are enough good ones to make you laugh and enough great ones to make you think. Teresa Theophano did a good job with her selections and arrangements.